Religious ad is new Hail Mary pass onTV

On Super Bowl Sunday, as even people who couldn't tell a football from a coconut must know by now, CBS will air an ad against abortion.

The ad, sponsored by the conservative religious group Focus on the Family, is unlike any ever aired during the Super Bowl.

It will recount how Bob and Pam Tebow went to the Philippines on a missionary trip and how, after Pam got amoebic dysentery, doctors counseled her to abort her fetus. She didn't, and the baby she bore turned into Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow.

A lot has been made of whether an abortion ad is appropriate for the Super Bowl and whether the Tebows' story is entirely true.

But here's a different question: Are we moving into an era of TV ads as sermons?

The thought struck me first a few nights ago when I'd snuggled into the couch for a TV hour that promised no mental strain or soul searching. I clicked the remote.

A voice: "When our transition into eternity begins, there won't be a chance for any do-overs."

The woman's voice was like a soft cool hand on a furrowed brow. She purred on as one by one, characters entered a warehouse then sat alone in a chair to watch the movie of their lives.

An abusive husband. A racist boss. A gossip. Each watched their worst selves on the big warehouse screen, brightening at scenes of their better incarnations.

For example, in the ad -- which is part of a "Catholics Come Home" campaign -- a woman watches herself shoot up in a shadowy bathroom. A moment later, her screen self hands flowers to a bedridden grandmotherly type.

"You still can ask God to help edit your life story," the voice went on, urging lapsed Catholics back to the fold.

We've all seen political ads and public service announcements. Your brain on drugs. Your lungs on cigarettes. Vote for the scoundrel. But those were about issues, not religion.

Commercials have mostly been a kind of Switzerland -- neutral territory where a viewer's religious beliefs and behaviors aren't confronted and nothing stabs to the existential core.

These two sermon ads raise the question: Are more on the way?

I asked Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker, marketing experts at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.

"I think we could see a lot more of this," Calkins said. "I'd bet a lot of religious organizations are watching to see if it works."

Like any enterprise, he said, religious organizations want to be heard in the noise and clutter. They need branding too.

Rucker said the trick is finding a tone that speaks to the target audience without inciting backlash.

"In touchy subject matter," he said, "tonality is the key."

Even when the tone is gentle, as in the Catholics Come Home ads, it's hard to imagine that most viewers want TV ads that preach religion. Nevertheless, Catholics Come Home envisions more.

"Imagine," says its Web site, "seeing inspiring Catholic messages on prominent programs every day, every year and on prime-time TV shows, major sports events, popular cable programs!"

If you prefer not to imagine religious sermons during "American Idol," however, there's this thought from Calkins:

"People have an incredible ability to tune out advertising. If you don't have kids, you tune out ads for diapers. A lot of people will say it's just part of the chaos of the day."